

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



owning land on the Trent bank were expressly forbidden to levy fines on 

 persons trading between Hull and Nottingham. 98 Trade was certainly 

 sufficiently hampered without these unwarranted exactions. Of regular and 

 permitted tolls there were many. At Blyth, for instance, among the tolls on 

 goods brought for sale was \d. on every cart-load of timber or of bread, and zd. 

 on cart-loads of other goods ; id. on a horse-load of salmon ; \d. on other goods, 

 \d. on a man's load ; \d. on every ox, horse, or cow ; \d. for every sheep or 

 pig ; and \d. on every sack of wool. 97 Doubtless such restrictions increased 

 the trade of towns, which, like Nottingham, were free of them. In Nottingham 

 itself however, as elsewhere, licence to trade had to be purchased ; but there 

 were plenty to buy it. In 1414, thirty-eight annual licences to trade were 

 granted, 98 while in 1478 sixty-eight were given. 99 Wholesale as well as retail 

 trade increased. In 1354 there was a request for a wool-staple at Notting- 

 ham ; 10 this was not granted, and a few years later the counties of Lincoln, 

 Leicester, Nottingham and Derby joined in petitioning for the re-establish- 

 ment of the wool-staple at Lincoln. 101 Throughout the ith century this 

 trade seems to have been active ; although Nottingham wool seems to have 

 shared in the decline in price which marked that period, as in 1454 it seems 

 to have ranged from seven marks (4 I 3-f. 4^.) to 5 a sack, whereas a hundred 

 years earlier it had been about y (i.e. ten and a half marks). 103 The low 

 price did not however discourage the traders, and in 1455 wool merchants 

 were to be found not only in Nottingham itself, but at Newark, North and 

 South Muskham, 103 and many other towns ; and a further sign of the activity 

 of the trade appears in the efforts of the merchants to evade the regulation 

 compelling them to send all their goods to the Calais staple. With this 

 object, they chose Newcastle as the place of export ; 1M and so persistent were 

 they that in 1472 the exportation of midland wool elsewhere than to Calais 

 was made a felony. 105 



Nottinghamshire shared not only in the old trade in raw wool, but in the 

 growing commerce in cloth. If Nottingham town still maintained its old 

 right of forbidding all weaving of cloth within ten leagues, the city itself 

 must have been almost the sole seat of the manufacture in the county. But 

 vendors, at least, of cloth were not confined to the town. About 13935 the 

 ulnage accounts mention merchants of Retford and Newark as well as of 

 Nottingham. 106 The total amount of ulnage paid for the counties of Notting- 

 ham and Derby was 9 4^. zld. The cloths were generally termed cloths 

 of assize, of which the rate of ulnage was zd. a dozen ; but other varieties were 

 mentioned, such as 'blanket' and 'russet.' In 1402 ulnage was paid by 

 about seventy merchants belonging to the three towns mentioned above. 107 

 Despite this activity, the primitive condition of trade is shown by the pay- 

 ment in kind which sometimes occurs ; thus in 1410, a parson agreed with a 

 weaver to pay him a quarter of corn for three-quarters of a yard of scarlet 

 cloth. 108 Rents in kind also continue ; rents not only in grain, which occur 

 frequently, but also in live stock. Thus the Prior of Worksop is said to 



M Rec. of Borough ofNott. i, 225-7. " J. Raine, Hist, of Blyth, 32. 



98 Rec. of Borough ofNott. ii, 103-5. " Ibid. 299-303. 



m Par/. R. (Rec. Com.) ii, 253. 1CI Ibid. 332. " Ibid, v, 275. 



"" Ibid, v, 295, 296. 1M Ibid, v, 564. 



105 Ibid, vi, 164. m Ulnage Accts. Exch. K.R. 346, no. 9, 16-18 Ric. II. 



" Ulnage Accts. Exch. K.R. bdle. 343, no. 21, 3 Hen. IV. I08 Rec. oj Borough ofNott. ii, 71-3. 



107 . . .. . , . 



279 



